On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin, discusses the lack of media coverage of the massacre of as many as 2,000 people in the town of Baga by Boko Haram militants. Abby then goes over the most outrageous responses to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and why the clash of civilizations mentality when it comes to these type of acts is so misleading. Abby then speaks with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, Chris Hedges, about the roots of the attacks in France and the relationship between global events and the rise of radicalization.

Chris Hedges: A Message from the Dispossessed

Seems like the world leaders didn’t actually “lead” the Unity March in Paris, but rather conducted a photo op in an empty, guarded street to polish their own ragged image (Reuters/Phillippe Wojazer).

The terrorist attack in France that took place at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was not about free speech. It was not about radical Islam. It did not illustrate the fictitious clash of civilizations. It was a harbinger of an emerging dystopia where the wretched of the earth, deprived of resources to survive, devoid of hope, brutally controlled, belittled and mocked by the privileged who live in the splendor and indolence of the industrial West, lash out in nihilistic fury.

We have engineered the rage of the dispossessed. The evil of predatory global capitalism and empire has spawned the evil of terrorism. And rather than understand the roots of that rage and attempt to ameliorate it, we have built sophisticated mechanisms of security and surveillance, passed laws that permit the targeted assassinations and torture of the weak, and amassed modern armies and the machines of industrial warfare to dominate the world by force. This is not about justice. It is not about the war on terror. It is not about liberty or democracy. It is not about the freedom of expression. It is about the mad scramble by the privileged to survive at the expense of the poor. And the poor know it.

The 5 million North Africans in France are not considered French by the French. And when they go back to Algiers, Tangier or Tunis, where perhaps they were born and briefly lived, they are treated as alien outcasts. Caught between two worlds, they drift, as the two brothers did, into aimlessness, petty crime and drugs.

The cartoons of the Prophet in the Paris-based satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo are offensive and juvenile. None of them are funny. And they expose a grotesque double standard when it comes to Muslims. In France a Holocaust denier, or someone who denies the Armenian genocide, can be imprisoned for a year and forced to pay a $60,000 fine. It is a criminal act in France to mock the Holocaust the way Charlie Hebdo mocked Islam. French high school students must be taught about the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but these same students read almost nothing in their textbooks about the widespread French atrocities, including a death toll among Algerians that some sources set at more than 1 million, in the Algerian war for independence against colonial France. French law bans the public wearing of the burqa, a body covering for women that includes a mesh over the face, as well as the niqab, a full veil that has a small slit for the eyes. Women who wear these in public can be arrested, fined the equivalent of about $200 and forced to carry out community service. France banned rallies in support of the Palestinians last summer when Israel was carrying out daily airstrikes in Gaza that resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. The message to Muslims is clear: Your traditions, history and suffering do not matter. Your story will not be heard.

One Response to Chris Hedges on Roots of Terrorism & Free Speech Hypocrisy

“French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has been arrested for being an “apologist for terrorism” after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathised with one of the Paris gunmen, a judicial source has said.”

“One wonders what “apologist for terrorism” may additionally include. When Hollande delivers weapons to terrorists in Syria isn’t he also an “apologist for terrorism”?

Defending the racism of Charlie Hebdo is seen as heroic but criticizing Zionist racism in Israel is not allowed?

France now deploys 10,000 soldiers and 5,000 police to protect “Jewish sites”. Meanwhile 26 places of worship for Muslims have been attacked and 34 have been threatened.”